


doomscroll dimanche

by lancegwenarthur



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, from a discussion, pre series like 2005 idk, this was supposed to be crack why did i spend a week and this much effort on this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:56:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27911119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lancegwenarthur/pseuds/lancegwenarthur
Summary: hannibal goes on some wild cannibal forums
Kudos: 18





	doomscroll dimanche

**Author's Note:**

> for lear, mari and all the hannibal influencers  
> im sorry this was supposed to be mainly jokes about bad cooking. im sorry if i forgot anything (other than not mentioning germany at all) from our discussion

Hannibal slid his laptop out of the desk drawer, where it hid to avoid disrupting the aesthetics of his office. Most of his life could be lived without the technology, but he wasn’t one to shun a new tool. Today, he had a curiosity. He pulled up an online forum he’d heard of recently. He didn’t think anything would come of it, but the reward would outweigh the hours spent if it did. Hannibal had many hours to spare.

Sifting through the posts to see who was in earnest was relatively simple. The photograph forgers seemed to assume that their audience had never heard of Photoshop, or even practical effects. The stories were betrayed by the details the writers got wrong, facts of anatomy Hannibal was sure were taught in most secondary schools worldwide.   
Hannibal did not upload any photos or stories of his own crimes. They would probably be dismissed as fake or lost in the milieu, but he wouldn’t take the chance. He did not join any comment threads, either. He just wanted to observe, at this point. He could decide on his next course of action if he found something interesting.

There were surely true cannibals in the online forums. It was brazen, but not all killers are highly intelligent.   
Hannibal moved on to determining what these cannibals were like. He was getting disappointed. The bad grammar was not counteracted by any charm. None of these people seemed like they were like Hannibal in a cultural sense, sharing the same interests or values. Comments often verged into the level of rudeness that would earn a spot in the murder rolodex, but it wasn’t worth tracing IP addresses for so many people. Like at the Italian bakery on panettone pickup day, when people got very upset when their orders could not be found, he would let this rudeness go. A sea of nastiness was not actionable.

As he dove deeper into the threads that appeared genuine, Hannibal realized that this had been a risk he should not have taken. Of course no one was monitoring his internet history, and he had taken steps for it to be obscured anyway, but all the same. He should not have spent his time on this. On people who plated cuts of meat with a sphere of mashed potatoes and a dinner roll and posted this to boast of their consumption of human flesh. Could it be a triumph to eat meat, cooked well done, seemingly bare of even salt and pepper, with colorless sides? There was no care in the meal. Hannibal was horrified on an artisanal level, but also disconcerted: he had gone on this virtual journey to ease a feeling of loneliness that he had swiftly compartmentalized and turned into an actionable plan. He now felt foolish both about the plan and about his feelings. These were not people who killed for the same reasons he did, who cannibalized from a similar urge. In a very repressed part of his heart, in a room in his memory palace barricaded shut, Hannibal hurt from not seeing a mirror of himself in any of the narcissistic postings. He had only confirmed that he was struggling alone, instead of finding himself rationalized and comforted by someone who understood why he had evolved into this particular monster.

He slid his laptop back into the desk drawer.


End file.
